Contains mild
spoilers.
A cross between the
character driven soap opera that is The Walking Dead, the prosaic long-winded
survival yawn that was Autumn (Dead Men Walking) and the highly-stylised,
highly-imaginative but audaciously preposterous Resident Evil franchise,
Extinction: The G.M.O. Chronicles, is not for the faint of heart. By that, I
don't mean it's a non-stop pulsating adrenalin fuelled roller coaster of terror,
with excessive gore and sadistic shock; in fact quite the opposite. Writer and
co-director Niki Drozdowski's zombie opus is so ambitiously and mundanely epic that unless
you're the sort who's happy to sit down for the best part of two hours for full-on zombie survival indulgence; as Joe Averages bumble between
fights, cheer each other up, and work out where to put the
new sofa, then I could easily see you bailing out before it gets going (which it never really does). Make
no mistake, this is a film for post-apocalyptic zombie lovers and
absolutely no one else; and I mean no-one. Whilst at a stretch Zombie Flesh
Eaters might pull some b-movie nostalgia strings on a date; though still risky,
Extinction would be a guaranteed way to have the evening end with you as alone as star of show Tom Keller (Daniel Buder) also pondering how it all went so wrong.
This is the story of
surviving when pretty much everyone has either died or turned. And I'd add
we're not talking The Walking Dead; we're talking a total world-wide
pathogen and extinction level event, 0.00001%, I Am Legend, hope you're an
introvert and comfortable with your own company level shit. An engineered virus developed
by Toonsman Industries (anagram of Monsanto) called Ranch Hand has gone rogue
evolving past it's shut-off inhibitors and jumped species, turning all but the
very few immune into vacant shells of their former selves and hungry for human flesh. Things aren't good; I'd even say things are positively very bad; though fortunately Tom has a few things going for him. One
he's ex-special forces, two he used to play at an abandoned, though
well-fortified army base that's nearby, as a child, and he knows it intimately,
and three he had his wits enough about him to get there unscathed, armed with a
gun, satellite phone and laptop. His good fortune also continues as rather then ending things rather than face a lifetime alone, he decides to see it out, and is rewarded on day 14 on a run to
get supplies, having already acquired food, water and generator, to find three survivors one of whom is a hot-chick (Luise
Bähr as Lisa Sattler), and one of whom is an American NSA agent with a contact who knows
a bit more about what's going on.
Extinction isn't the
awful story of being forced to scavenge and scrap over the few scant provisions
that are left, of hiding silently for weeks in small claustrophobic holes, and learning to collect rain water in your underpants. Everyone's
dead so there's food, there's tins, water, chocolate bars, there's police
stations with guns; there's everything you really need to live quite the
comfortable, if rustic life, especially as said, if you happen to occupy a remote double fenced and expansive army
base. It's also all easy to get because the walker
zombies don't actually come out at night; well they do, but they're in sleep
mode and easily navigated around.
Extinction has a single pace that is measured and methodical. The four survivors eventually becomes five, then seven, there's some internal conflict, then they're forced to leave, then there's a rescue, some fights, a damn, then a final castle siege. Extinction could be labelled pedestrian, measured, dare I say tedious, but one thing it can't be called it empty, and certainly not badly paced. The reason it's full and not merely a two hour character drama, and also the narrative reason for the group to
eventually do something other than cook, jog and think about home improvements
is the walker zombies aren't the only threat. Owing something to both Resident
Evil's fetish for mutation and Left for Dead's penchant for mixing it up, the
walker gang are soon joined by runners, jumpers, then later blind-shriekers and
even a big daddy boss.
Rather than being
incoherent and breaking the finely woven world Drozdowski has forged, the
additional and increasingly audacious zombie shake up somehow not only slots right in, but feels necessary and inevitable. Each
mutation while raising an eyebrow, especially the screamer, is also taken so matter
of fact by the now tight-knit survivor group that one can't help going along
with it. The action sequences are handled in a similar way. Being chased
by twenty runners? Just phone ahead to get people to open
the gate, no need to panic. And that lack of threat or urgency transfers to the
viewer with a film that while constantly interesting, enthralling almost, maybe could never really be
accused of ever exciting.
Extinction is an A to B movie; there's no narrative
circles or satisfying conclusions. It's a budget German Lord of the Rings
without Sauron or anyone owning a ring; it's the Walking Dead-lite, yet as said
I found the thing all rather charming and engaging, even if it never particularly raised my heart
rate. It's also worth noting that the cinematography, shot composition, scripting, and performances are quite faultless and from a directing and production point of view, as a budget movie with big desires it's quite the accomplishment. A hard one to score; 6/10 and do watch; yet on your own.
Steven@WTD.
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